One piece: I,Akaino will not die easily

The post-war summary seminar lasted from the afternoon until the evening, and only then did the officers, all starving, finally emerge from the intelligence room. Their stomachs growling with hunger, the high-ranking officers left the base in groups of two or three, looking for food.

Sakazuki had always enforced strict discipline in the military, whether during training or leading troops into battle. However, during post-war recovery periods like this, if he continued imposing the usual strict rules on personnel leaving the base, it would certainly alienate the troops.

To put it lightly, soldiers and officers would see him as a rigid and inflexible leader. Strict training and inspections during peacetime were understandable, and unwavering battlefield discipline was necessary for ultimate victory. But if he were to enforce a ban on leaving the base even after the war—when soldiers needed time to relax and recover—it would be downright inhumane.

To put it more seriously, people would say that "Admiral Sakazuki doesn't understand human nature."

Sakazuki chose to turn a blind eye to it. Even a good bowstring must be loosened at times to maintain its elasticity and the tension of the bow itself. If the bowstring is always kept too tight, the bow will snap sooner or later. The same principle applied to the military—if soldiers remained on edge indefinitely, then the moment something unexpected happened, disaster would be inevitable.

Standing in the now-empty intelligence room, Sakazuki retrieved a hand-cranked coffee grinder and a sealed parchment bag of coffee beans from a cupboard by the window. He then carefully began grinding the beans into coffee powder.

In the military, coffee was considered an essential supply—so much so that, in some cases, it was even more important than combat rations.

There was an old joke in the Western military: Even if there's no food, there must be coffee.

In fact, American military rations had never been without coffee, and they even took it a step further by extracting caffeine in concentrated form as a necessary military pharmaceutical.

A cup of coffee's caffeine content could stimulate a soldier's central nervous system, heart, and respiratory system, allowing them to maintain high-intensity, prolonged combat. In moderate amounts, caffeine could also reduce muscle fatigue.

As someone who would practically die without coffee but wasn't fond of smoking or drinking, Sakazuki had always had a special fondness for this beverage.

The boiler room was located just outside the intelligence room. With full concentration, the admiral used his ability to control the water temperature. 80 degrees Celsius was the optimal brewing temperature for this particular bag of light-roast coffee.

Light roasting was primarily about enjoying the diverse aromas contained within the raw coffee beans. In other words, it minimized the roasted coffee aroma created during dark roasting while highlighting the natural characteristics of the beans themselves. Therefore, the key to selecting light-roast coffee was the freshness of the raw beans and the richness of their natural aromas. Generally speaking, the higher-end the coffee market or raw beans, the easier it was to find light-roast coffee.

The term light referred to a roasting level between the first crack and the second crack, commonly known as cinnamon roast or city roast.

Sakazuki preferred to assess coffee quality using a method known as cupping. He would place freshly ground coffee beans into a cup, pour hot water over them, let them steep briefly, and then, without filtering, scoop out a sample with a small spoon to taste.

"Hmm." The admiral was fairly satisfied with the coffee beans stored in the base's cupboards.

Light-roast coffee beans hadn't undergone full expansion, and the capillaries that assisted with extraction weren't fully formed, making their acidity more pronounced.

Acidity was a common characteristic of coffee grown in high-altitude regions. The higher the altitude, the better the sweetness and complexity of the coffee flavors. To be precise, there was a correlation between the two, though it wasn't a direct cause-and-effect relationship. To a large extent, the factors determining coffee quality were more related to the temperature of its growing environment.

Using standard extraction methods might not fully bring out the best flavors. Only by making adjustments to the basic extraction process could one achieve a richer and more flavorful cup of coffee.

Extraction time was also crucial—the duration of contact between coffee grounds and water was an important variable for a good brew.

If the contact time was too long or the ratio of coffee to water was too low, over-extraction would occur. Sakazuki knew well that when using a drip coffee maker or brewing espresso, over-extraction was often caused by grinding the coffee too finely. With manual pour-over brewing, the issue was usually an excessively long extraction time. Water that was too hot could also lead to over-extraction. This process would extract too many unwanted compounds, such as excess caffeine, making the coffee bitter and unbalanced.

On the other hand, if the coffee grounds were in contact with hot water for too short a time, the extraction would be insufficient, failing to bring out all the flavors from the grounds. This would result in a thin, weak taste that lacked the distinct characteristics of good coffee.

Sakazuki leaned forward, bringing his face close to the freshly brewed coffee. He gently waved his hand, creating a small breeze to carry the aroma into his nostrils.

Picking up his cup, he returned to the dimly lit intelligence room, savoring the quiet moment as he focused entirely on enjoying his coffee.

Coffee not only kept him alert but also helped him organize his thoughts.

Earlier that day, Garp's two rounds of phone call bombardments had irritated Sakazuki so much that he seriously considered returning to Marineford just to find that old bastard and beat him up.

As for whether he could actually win? Was that even the question here?

…Though, to be fair, at the moment, it really did seem like he couldn't win…

He had long realized that he needed to strengthen himself before the establishment of the Seven Warlords and the Four Emperors. Only by doing so could he secure an advantage and implement more reforms.

But Garp's recent actions served as yet another reminder: In this world, where morals were somewhat twisted, strength ruled all was not just an empty phrase.

From a pirate's perspective, Big Mom was willing to conquer an entire country just for sweets, and Kaido was a well-known lunatic. The biggest common trait between them and figures like Shanks and Whitebeard—aside from their vastly different personalities—was simple: They could fight. And they could fight incredibly well.

Those who could fight became the Four Emperors. Those who were particularly anti-social ended up in Impel Down, picking up soap.

And upholding justice required strength.

With someone like Garp, a fellow marine, if you couldn't beat him, you could still argue your way out. But against pirates? If you lost, you'd be dead.

No one was going to give you time for some long-winded talk-no-jutsu—this was the world of One Piece, not some place where people defeated enemies by debating philosophy while rolling rice balls. The strong ruled, and the weak submitted. That was the law of this world.

Sakazuki pulled a blank sheet of paper from the drawer, picked up the fountain pen on his desk, and began seriously listing out abilities and techniques from anime and movies that resembled his Magma-Magma Fruit powers.

Improving his Haki and physical combat skills would take time, so the quickest way to enhance his current combat power was by further developing his Devil Fruit abilities.

Rather than coming up with ideas out of thin air, studying powerful moves from other anime and refining them, while also discarding the less effective techniques of canon Sakazuki, would save him a lot of time.

And time was the one thing he lacked the most.

Only through constant experimentation and refinement could he turn the densely packed hypotheses on his paper into reality.

After all, practice was the only standard for testing the truth.